


he's the tear in my heart (i'm alive)

by teddy_the_bear03



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime)
Genre: Banter, Confessions, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, but we love him, himbos, i love them ..., just self indulgent boys, magma is a dumbass, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teddy_the_bear03/pseuds/teddy_the_bear03
Summary: Magma is convinced that he's coming down with an illness, and is so incredibly worried that he consults Senku for help. The symptoms are textbook - fluttery stomach, lightheadedness, not being able to think straight - but the catch is that it only seems to act up whenever Yo is around.
Relationships: Magma/Uei You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	he's the tear in my heart (i'm alive)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This was just a cute little snippet I wanted to write and get out there for a few of my favorite boys. Ever since July of this year, Dr. Stone has absolutely stolen my heart, Yo being the main captor - I got so so attached to him so quick! Him and Magma just have a really cute dynamic and I love their banter, and Magma definitely seems like the type to do this, so... I hope you enjoy. Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Title is from Twenty One Pilots's song "Tear In My Heart." Go check it out!

This was it. He was  _ done _ for.

It was the third time today he’d felt like this - the sun was  _ too _ hot, beating down upon his broad shoulders and causing sweat to bead across his hairline - he’d never been too curious about old world inventions, but the sunglasses Gen talked so frequently about seemed rather appealing as of now. He felt as though, despite  _ years _ of hard work and training, his legs were going to collapse under him - his palms were clammy, thumb rubbing anxiously against the skin of his knuckle in a barely noticeable tic - and  _ god, _ it was suddenly so hard to think straight, feeling as though any train of thought he’d decided to board was now chugging along fields thick with mud.

And the worst part was that it was all because of  _ him _ .

He didn’t take  _ pleasure _ in being allergic to people - hell, he hadn’t even known it was possible up until now - but every time he spared a glance to Yo’s direction, it seemed like all of his symptoms came flooding back to him. The curve of his lip when he smiled, the sharp lines of his collarbone and the reflex of his hand to holster whenever someone approached him - all of it coagulated into one big thing of  _ sick _ , starting in from his chest and spreading outward like a hundred butterflies beating their wings against his ribcage. Part of him wanted to blame it on the heat of summer, sinking heavy around the entire village like a wave to an unsuspecting beach, but the swelter of heat that burned under his cheeks was not due to the seasons and he was  _ sure _ of it.

And as he catches himself pausing midlift (muscles straining against the slosh of water in the bucket) to silently stare at the way the sheriff examines a statue, he  _ knows _ something is wrong with him. The way the cop’s fingers trail down the petrified human’s features is positively  _ sinful _ \- only a man sick out of his mind would want himself to be touched like that, right? To be studied beneath handsome, cerulean blue eyes like perhaps  _ he _ was something worth looking at -

Alright, enough was enough. He needed help.

Setting the bucket onto the table with an exhale, he brushes his hands together before shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun to spot Senku’s home amidst the various clusters of houses he’d poured his soul into - they were sturdy things, held up against rain and snow and on occasion a good beating, and he was just happy they were still in use. A long line drawn in the sand slices in front of one, and with a quick glance from left to right he begins to creep toward the tent - hands crossed behind his back in a vague attempt to seem nonchalant.

“Hey! Big guy! What do you think you’re doing?” The call comes from his left and he freezes, so damn  _ close _ to the lab and yet so, so far. The hut seems to jeer at him, taunting him with its shade and solace, and his throat feels about as dry as the cracked ground beneath him as he comes face to face with the man who was the  _ source _ of all of this in the first place.

“Think you can just slack off like that, huh?” Yo grins - a perfect, ragged thing, sharp enough to slice through the thin veneer of the Magma’s self restraint. It takes every single fiber of Magma’s being to not zero in on the thin scar above his lip  _ (what would it feel like to kiss it, he wonders) _ and instead fix his gaze on the sheriff’s eyes, scrutinizing him as he chuckles. “Back in my day, we’d get punished for that.”

“Oh, god, you don’t have to remind me,” Magma retorts, raising an eyebrow, “have I mentioned how sick I am of hearing your stories?”

Yo rolls his eyes, schooling his features into a complacent expression, and Magma wants to kiss it off of his stupid  _ (handsome, splendid, brilliant) _ face. “And yet you always seem to want to hear them,” he says, blue eyes swiveling to fix a half-lidded gaze on him, and Magma’s sure that if he doesn’t get out of here soon, he’s going to combust. 

“No, but really, where do you think you’re going?”

“Just checking on Senku,” Magma says, and then snorts, crossing his arms to cock an eyebrow at the cop. “Why? Are you jealous?”

“You know it’s not like that,” Yo replies, stepping back to put some distance between them - and suddenly the brawler misses the close proximity,  _ wants  _ the sheriff to lean into him the way he always did when teasing him. “Curious, is all - we still have work to do.”

“Work’s gonna get done whether I take a five minute break or not,” Magma says, and turns to finish the short-lived trek that was the rest of the way to the lab. 

He tries (and fails) to not pay attention to the way Yo watches him leave, blue eyes boring holes into the fabric of his back - why he always seemed to look after him, Magma didn’t know, but it made his stomach flip so pleasantly that he bursted into Senku’s home with his hands trembling from this strange illness the sheriff always seemed to set upon him.

“Senku!” He exclaims, throwing the door open to let it slam against the small of his back - the scientist turns to him, red eyes blown wide with panic, and he damn near drops the vial when Magma’s large silhouette obscures the sunlight previously pouring in from the cracks in the walls.

“What?” Senku asks, spindly fingers putting the equipment back in the bin he kept it inside of with practiced ease. The wicker basket was filled with various tools - wrenches made of stone and was that a  _ slingshot? _ \- and the vial is balanced precariously against one side as the scientist turns to face him entirely.

“I think I’m dying,” Magma blurts out, one hand fisting into the front of his shirt, and he sighs shakily. “Either that or I’m getting very, very ill.”

“Really?” Senku deadpans, standing to his full height and giving the brawler a once over. “You don’t look too bad to me.”

“Well, it’s conditional,” Magma replies, scrambling to find the proper words to describe his condition - this was  _ serious _ , and he was going to get nowhere if Senku wasn’t intent on believing him. “See, it’s… I feel sick whenever I see Yo.”

Senku’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“You know…” Magma gestures vaguely. “I get all warm in my cheeks, and my arms feel so shaky? And… oh! I always seem to stutter around him, even though nothing’s wrong.”

Any previous concern that Senku had been displaying has entirely dissipated, and if Magma squints, he’s pretty sure he can see the beginnings of a smile quirking his lips. “Right,” the scientist says slowly, “and do you feel fluttering in your chest? When you see him, I mean.”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Magma breathes out. “And it’s so difficult to think, too! My mind just… forgets to work sometimes.” As he lists them off like names scribbled upon a board, he feels a lump starting to form in his throat - when spoken aloud, they seemed all too real, and being faced with the fact that he may never be able to interact with his rival  _ (his best friend, his enemy, his confidante) _ made his jaw quiver embarrassingly.   
  
To his surprise, Senku simply chuckles, running a hand through his hair. He gives him a withering, panicked look. "What's so funny?" Magma squeaks out, bringing his hand up to his mouth to bite at a nail when he realizes that it's still dirty from today's work. He clutches his pants, instead, and tries to quell his anger - but Senku seems to think that his illness is the funniest thing in the world.

"Nothing, nothing," Senku says, waving a hand as if to clear the atmosphere, "it's just... your symptoms seem very severe, is all." A stone of something like resignation sinks into the bottom of Magma’s stomach - so this was it, then. If Senku couldn’t cure him… he’d be done for. "The lightheadedness, the fast heart rate, the wobbly legs... it's all really pointing to one thing."

Magma stares at him, anxiety furrowing his brow and hands clenched at his sides.

Senku gives him the most deadpan red eyed glare he’d ever been subject to. "You're in love with Yo."

The news hits him like the force of a two-ton truck (or, at least, what he assumes it would feel like if one of them did.) Him? In love with  _ Yo? _ He’d never exactly…  _ been _ in love before, so while he didn’t know  _ what _ was going through his head (although he’s sure it wasn’t love!) he knew that he was very, very sick. Just the thought of having feelings, romantic feelings for Yo was ludicrous - how could he be, when all they did was spend time together, work together as a team, banter back and forth as if they’d known each other every day of their lives, and yearn to hold the other’s hand as their gaze lingers too long on their lips?

Shit, he was starting to see what Senku was getting at.

"No way!” He insists. “But I feel so woozy all the time - isn't that much more likely to be allergies?" His face falls further when Senku just laughs again, shaking his head. "A-and he's my best friend, anyway... I can't like him!"

"Why not?" Senku asks, leaning back on his desk as if this wasn’t the revelation of the century. "It's not like it'll change anything, you'd just... kiss more."

Magma looks positively appalled. "Implying that we already do?"

"Your words, not mine," Senku grins, and proceeds to talk over Magma’s splutter. “Listen - you’ve got nothing to lose. If you want to alleviate his symptoms, it’s best that you confess to him, and get them over with one way or another.”

“You make it sound so clinical,” Magma mutters, but the point has successfully gotten across. If confessing to Yo, whatever that meant, would make him feel better, then he’d certainly do it - and then he realizes he  _ wants _ Yo to say yes, for them to be able to kiss and do what Jasper and Turquoise did whenever they went hunting together.

“That’s because it is,” Senku says, and turns to face his desk fully - eyeing Magma in a way that changed from amused to dismissive. “Now, as much as I  _ love _ talking about your crush with you, I don’t have time to waste. Good luck.”

Magma nods, muttering a hushed “thank you” under his breath before stepping out into the sunny midday once more. Dirt crunches under his feet as he shields his eyes from the sun, heartbeat quickening when he catches the ginger-haired silhouette who’d started this ordeal - he was talking with Kaseki, gesturing to his blind eye as the elder hammered away at a quickly improving in quality invention, and makes a pact with himself - confess by three more sundowns.

Two and a half days later, and he still has not done it.

It’s not that he’s scared to (well, alright, he’s scared a little, but who  _ isn’t _ a little intimidated by Yo) but that he just hasn't had the time - he didn't realize how much of his schedule was with Yo but not necessarily  _ alone _ , and alright, maybe he did chicken out when they'd been sent to the woods to collect kindling (although Yo had looked gorgeous in the dim light of dusk) and maybe it hadn't crossed his mind when their hands had brushed as Yo had said goodbye to him, alone in Magma's tent after they'd swapped a few stories, but... still. But now, he understands that if he doesn't do it this evening, he's no longer as good as his word - folks could say all they wanted about him, good or bad, but he never went back on a promise - not even to himself.

So he walks with conviction out of his home when night had long past fallen, stars like freckles dotting the indigo cheeks of a midnight blue sky - tries to still his hands as they shake, wringing themselves in front of him as he searches the grounds for the familiar flicker of flame that was only put out when everyone went to sleep. That was his first bet - if not, he’d find him in his tent,  _ hopefully _ not asleep lest his plans be foiled.

For once, the odds are in his favor, and he sees the cop who’d stolen his heart (rather ironic, wasn’t it?) hunched by the fire, fiddling with the stone around his wrists as he hunched near the warmth. He seemed to be alone - another win for Magma - and there is something so bittersweet in the slump of his shoulders as he crosses his legs by the fireside. The blonde gets close enough to hear his tired exhale before he realizes that he’s been silent all this time, and was probably going to scare the poor man out of his wits.

“Hey, Yo-”

“Oh, my _God!”_ He’d been correct in that assumption, and has to hold back a laugh when the cop nearly flies three feet in the air at the sound of his voice. “You scared the living daylights out of me, Magma!”

“Sorry about that,” Magma says, wincing a little - off to a great start. As he sits down next to Yo - perhaps on purpose if it’s a little closer than necessary, shoulders brushing - he opts for the one thing he is good at - teasing Yo. “What, afraid something’s gonna getcha?”

“Out in these woods?” Yo asks, gesturing around them before placing a hand on what Magma can only assume is his jack-rabbit fast heart, “you can never tell. One minute you’re foraging and the next you’re somebody else’s meal.” He shifts, then, leaning back toward the fire - his eyes are gorgeous, a perfect mixture of blue and red that makes Magma go breathless all over again. “Can’t help it - I’m always a little on edge here.”

“I don’t blame you,” Magma replies, poking at one of the nearest logs with his foot - not at all close to the fire, but enough to give him something to look at besides Yo’s handsome features. “it’s not the safest place to be, but… Where is, y’know?” He laughs, shaking his head. “At least there’s people we can trust here.”  _ At least there’s you _ goes unspoken, but it hangs in the air long enough to make the tension grow thicker than the humidity and the drone of crickets in the trees.

“That’s for sure.” There’s a long pause, then - it’s not uncomfortable, both of them mesmerized by the way the fire eats and crackles at the kindling, and Magma doesn’t know how much time has passed - only that the moon has barely adjusted itself in the sky - when Yo begins talking again.

“I’m still so surprised that you guys… let me in so easy, I guess. Trusted me so fast.” He looks up from the fire, then, gaze far more piercing than any eagle eyed stare thrown at him before. “Did you ever have any doubts?”

“Still do,” Magma jokes, gently elbowing him in the ribs, “no, but… At the beginning, yeah, but that’s because you worked for Tsukasa. Now you’re helping out all over the camp n’... I don’t have any room to complain.” He mentally chides himself for being so terrible with words, and wishes he was able to properly articulate how… God, how deeply he felt for him. But alas, he was a fool, and always tended to revert to humor - why was he so scared of rejection? “Why, are you planning something behind my back?”

“Maybe,” Yo winks, “you should sleep with one eye open.” They both laugh at that - both a general jab and a joke about the cop’s one blind eye. “I’m kidding,” he amends. “I guess I just… wonder sometimes - believe it or not, I wasn’t the most popular guy before the Stone World.”

“No, I’ll believe it,” Magma grins, making Yo scoff, “but you’re getting better, and that’s what matters.” His voice takes on the gentlest edge that he can possibly manage, and he’s so pleased to see that Yo’s eyes soften. “Hell, you’ve gotten me to tolerate you. Isn’t that a feat?”

Yo laughs, and he can tell that this time, he hadn’t been expecting the jab. Magma bites his lip, wanting nothing more than to remedy the burn. “More than tolerate you, actually,” he blurts out, and by the way Yo’s head swings up, he knows that he’s crossed one of the invisible lines they’d always drawn in the sand when it came to them both. They’d always toed them, but never had actually dared to step across - but here he was, with all the grace of the wrestlers Gen had told him about, tumbling over it with nothing but the shadows as his witness.

“I talked to Senku earlier,” he continues, and watches the perfect way Yo’s brow furrows in curiosity, “because I thought I was coming down with something.”

“Really?” Yo breathes, eyes flicking down to Magma’s lips only to meet his gaze again. “You didn’t come here just to get me sick, did you?”

“Actually, I’m kind of hoping you already caught it,” Magma remarks, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, and  _ God _ , when did Yo get so close? “See… I told him all my symptoms and…” He inhales, all of his nerves honing in on the fact that Yo’s fingers were brushing his thigh, that he could feel Yo’s every breath against the skin of his cheek. “He said that I was in love with you, and that’s why I was feeling so… fluttery.”

And, in that moment, time seemed to stop.

The slight gasp that leaves Yo feels like an eternity in Magma’s right ear, and the way his eyes widen slightly, framed by prettily curled eyelashes is like an oil painting he’d only ever heard about through word of mouth. His hair, ginger in color, is only amplified by the dying light of the fire - the crickets are even louder, now, buzzing from atop their hidden perches in the trees that tower above them. The cop’s blunt fingernails dig into the fabric of his pants, but only slightly - and then he’s chuckling, a low, handsome thing that makes fragile, hopeful warmth seep hot and heavy throughout Magma’s chest.

“Guess I’ve got it bad, then,” he laughs, hand that isn’t on Magma’s thigh coming up to press against the other’s jaw, feeling where his stubble (prickly and barely there) has slightly grown in. The brawler can barely manage a  _ really? _ before Yo is kissing him, oh my God he’s  _ kissing _ him, and Magma positively melts into the gesture. The butterflies in his stomach have erupted and beat their one thousand wings with incredible clarity - he feels so overjoyed all at once that he can’t believe he’s sitting still, and the lightheadedness is welcome with the rush of Yo’s lips moving against his - far more practiced than he was.

The symptoms hadn’t gone away - quite the opposite, really, but Magma couldn’t find it in himself to mind much anymore. He smiled a little, against Yo’s lips, and relished in the fact that the cure for them was the same damn thing that was making him so sick in the first place.

_ You can always count on Senku to be right, _ Magma thinks, and is then immediately jerked out of his thoughts when Yo winds an arm around his neck, pulling him ever closer.


End file.
